..we believe three characteristics of VR will help it carve out its position in the world of computing. These characteristics hint at Neal Stephenson’s metaverse. Namely, they are presence, scale, and interaction design.

Presence is an Oculus-coined term that effectively translates to a sense of being there. With presence, comes focus and attention. It’s impossible to ignore a piece of content when it’s your reality. It’s also proven that presence changes the way people internalize information and react emotionally to stimulus. That level of intellectual involvement will impact what we can do with software.

Scale is something we all understand. It’s difficult to imagine what the interior of a house will look like from a diagram on the screen of an iPhone. It’s easy for an architect to help you imagine how the interior of a house might look when you can walk around inside of it.

Interaction design changes fundamentally when your body becomes the controller. Today, when you use a computer for training or simulation, you interact with it using a mouse or a keyboard. It can inform you about different environments, but it does little to teach you how to execute tasks physically in the real world. VR changes that. When a system is designed to monitor movement on hundreds of different points on your body, it can help train you to do everything from perform surgical motions to throwing a football.